Drinking Alone
by watchitstark
Summary: Maybe going out alone that night hadn't been such a great idea. Stellini. Dani Ferrington/Stella Gibson. BBC The Fall fic.


**Drinking Alone**

Stella jolted awake as a loud noise echoed through the emptier than usual Police station. She sat up, immediately alert, eyes already scanning the darkened and still unfamiliar office. She relaxed as her muddled brain observed that there was no danger, and sighed into the darkness, laying back to concentrate on the ceiling far above her head. She contemplated the likelihood of being able to go back to sleep. Her prospects were looking pretty dull on that front to be completely honest, and when her phone vibrated she was glad of the distraction, hoping that it would be an update on the case that she could work on so as to not feel like she was wasting the sleepless, slow passing hours.

It was a text from her delightfully helpful redheaded right-hand woman. Her delightfully helpful redheaded gay right-hand woman. She just couldn't let that go, it seemed. It was a fact that just circulated in her brain continuously. It was already quite well known that Stella got what she wanted, and over the years what she wanted had come in many forms, male and female. If she could just spend a night with her... she shook her head and turned back to her phone, blaming her mind's wanderings on it's sleep deprived state.

She opened the text to find herself in a state of shock. It made almost no sense and the only reason she could come up with that was that maybe the younger woman had sat on her phone, or maybe there was something wrong. She quickly dialled the redhead's number, hoping that she'd get an answer.

"Stella, thank God," she slurred before the blonde even had a chance to say anything, and she almost laughed as she realised the younger Police officer was drunk. "I need picking up from, er, wherever I am," she continued mindlessly.

"Can you tell me a street name or the name of an establishment you're near?"

"I'm outside that bar on Crescent Road," she managed after a long pause. "They threw me out for hitting on a woman who was quite clearly more interested in the unattractive male she was sat with! I was just trying to teach her the error of her ways, and that actually she could do a lot better!" she said angrily, her accent heavily exaggerated by the amount of alcohol she had consumed and her strong emotion. During this tirade Stella had slipped on her shoes and coat and had grabbed some car keys off of some detective or other.

"Okay, I'm coming to get you." It was a good thing that Belfast was quite a small town, and that just happened to be the pub that she had visited with her new friend the pathologist, otherwise she would have no idea where she was going.

When the bar came into view she was relieved to see that the redhead was perched on the curb in front of it, looking really rather put out and smoking a cigarette as angrily as it was possible to. The blonde quickly stepped out the car and grabbed Dani, slipping an arm around her and shepherding her into the car, which was still running. She buckled up her ginger coworker into her seat, desperately trying to ignore how close she was to being able to kiss her, trying to ignore how her skin tingled wherever it touched the younger woman. She sighed as she walked around the car and took her own seat. She pulled away from the curb without thinking and then belatedly realised that she had no idea where the patrol officer lived, and that there was no way Dani was in any fit state to be giving out directions. Where could she take her? Not to the Police Station, not when she was this inebriated; she knew that Dani wouldn't want anyone to see her in state she was presently in. That left only place; her hotel. She sighed at the thought that she was probably going to end up spending what was left of the night sitting on a vaguely uncomfortable sofa in a vaguely uncomfortable position listening to her subordinate snore. At least she could laugh at the nasty hangover she'd be sporting in the morning.

"Thank you, for coming to get me," the ginger woman managed to only slur a little as she looked at the older woman through vaguely unfocused eyes.

"I suppose it wasn't too much of a problem," she replied easily, fighting a smile.

"It's really nice of you to come and get me when I just texted you on a whim though, and you barely know me."

"I know you would have done the same for me if I had sent you a nonsense text," she responded simply. "Though I am intrigued as to why you texted me instead of a close friend or your partner."

"Because I'd like to count you as a friend, also your number is weirdly easy to remember, and I knew you wouldn't tease me to death about going out and drinking alone," she rambled.

"I think I like to count you as a friend too. I'm glad you called me," Stella admitted, fully aware that the other woman would not remember that in the morning.

"That's so cute," she gushed, a grin stretching across her face.

"Oh shush, I am not cute," she muttered irritably.

"Awh no you're usually not, certainly not at work you're all intimidating and make the guys do whatever you want them to because all of them are in love with you."

"What?" she asked distractedly as she pulled haphazardly into a parking space, climbing out the car as soon as she could so as to end this conversation. Dani managed to unbuckle herself and climb out the car and trailed after her superior as she led her way into the lift of the hotel.

"Why are we at your hotel?" she asked confusedly.

"Well do you think you could explain to me where you live right now?" she asked with a smirk.

"Oh, erm..." a cute little sleepy frown crossed her face. "No, I suppose I couldn't."

"Exactly," she hit the button for her floor and then watched as Dani lurched into a wall as the lift started going up. She couldn't help but laugh at the cute way the younger woman attempted to act like she had meant to do that.

"You didn't see anything," she waved her hands around and then slumped back against the wall she had just fallen into. "I'm tired now," she yawned. The lift stopped and Stella grabbed her to pull her out of the lift and down the hallway to her room which she quickly unlocked and lead the younger woman into. The younger woman took one look at the bed and happily collapsed upon it for a long moment, before haphazardly kicking her shoes off and into distant corners of the room, and then scrabbling at the duvet before giving up and going back to just collapsing on top of it, still wearing her coat.

Stella couldn't help the laugh that bubbled from her throat as she fondly grinned down at the younger woman. Brown eyes fluttered open and the younger woman groaned as she buried her face in her pillow and kicked her legs around.

"Stop laughing at me, this isn't funny. Everything is spinning," she complained.

"Oh but it really is funny, you look adorable."

"No, I already decided you were the cute one!" she argued. "I said it first you can't just say the same thing."

"Yes, I can," she said as she retrieved a bottle of water from the mini fridge and handed it to her. "Now sit up and drink that," she commanded.

"Ooh, you're being all stern with me DCI Gibson, what are you going to do, lock me in a cell for the night?" she teased even as she slowly and unsteadily sat up and took the bottle.

"Yes, if you're not careful I'll arrest you for drunk and disorderly and then I can go back to sleeping in my office."

"Why are you sleeping in your office? This is going to be a long case, you might as well just rent somewhere close to the station for a while. You could stick around when it's done, I'll show you the sights," she offered with a laugh and then intensely concentrated on unscrewing her bottle of water.

"You can barely unscrew the cap on your bottle of water, this isn't the time to be making offers you won't keep to," she laughed.

The ginger woman finally managed to drink some water and glared up at the older woman. "I will keep to it. You'll probably have to remind me of it in the morning, but once you have I will definitely take you around even though there is nothing to see."

"You only think that because you live here," she laughed. "I've only ever been here for work, and I never had a reason to stay any longer than needed."

"Well now you do, so that's been decided," she determinedly, then handed Stella back the half full bottle and collapsed back onto the bed, waving her legs about again.

"You need to at least take your coat and jeans off," she tried.

"I'm not really sure I'm all that able," she mumbled around a mouthful of pillow.

"I'll put my DCI Gibson voice back on," she challenged with a smirk.

"Ooh, how could I possibly argue with that," she said sarcastically and started struggling with her coat, kind of just thrashing about on the bed rather uselessly.

"I thought you were sobering up, you've been effectively sassing me and everything!" she continued to watch her thrash about for a while. "I am not helping you get undressed," she declared stubbornly.

"I think you're going to have to. I've got my arms stuck," the redhead laughed out of embarrassment and moved her arms as much as she could to demonstrate. They didn't move as much as she would have hoped. At least she was pretty sure she wasn't going to remember this tomorrow. That helped.

"No, just thrash around a bit more," she suggested unhelpfully.

"Stella, you study horrific murders for a living. You can help me take my coat off."

She sighed and slowly knelt on the bed next to her friend. She wasn't really sure whether stopping at just taking her friend's coat off was really an option considering what she was feeling, but she'd have to just cope, it seemed. She roughly tugged it off and quickly stood up, depositing it on a chair. When she turned around Dani had managed to struggle her jeans down to mid-thigh, showing off the lovely pair of black mens boxer briefs she was wearing, and her tank top was drifting around somewhere above her tummy button. Stella almost just turned around again, and was about to when a small plaintive cry of "help" issued from the redhead's direction that she definitely wasn't looking in.

"No way am I helping with your trousers," she said while still not looking at her.

"Steelllaaaaa, they're really tight and I can't currently stay sat up for very long this is really haaarrrddd, you just have to pull from the bottom?" she suggested.

"You sound like you have experience," she noted dryly in an attempt to revert back to being calm and collected.

"Of course. If you wear these kinds of jeans on a night out you have to know the fastest way to get them off, and that is often from the bottom," she laughed and carried on attempting to catch her foot as she waved it around in the air above her. Stella sighed and stepped forward, grabbing the waving leg and quickly yanking the tight material down, then grabbed the other leg as well and pulled them off in one quick motion.

"You're good at that, do you have to pull tight jeans off of women often?" she teased with a laugh and the older woman just rolled her eyes. "I wish, now go to sleep."

"Yes, Ma'am," she mumbled and finally managed to fight her way under the covers while Stella turned and sat down on the sofa on the other side of the room, clicking on the TV on mute and turning on the subtitles.

"Oh but I don't think I'm going to forget that "I wish" comment that will be investigated tomorrow when I'm in a better condition to... investigate."

"Of course it will, you will definitely remember it," she laughed. "Now go to sleep!"

"Fine, fine," she muttered, and was asleep not all that much later. Stella sighed as she pulled a thick blanket from the back of the sofa and leaned over to switch the light off. She wriggled and attempted to get comfortable, not content with the size of the sofa even though she was hardly tall. The redhead chose that moment to start snoring, and the blonde sighed again.

She woke slowly, groggily attempting to come to terms with the fact that something resembling daylight was lightening the inside of her eyelids, and the fact that she was incredibly comfortable in this bed that felt unfamiliar but it smelt like... she nuzzled the pillow again and sighed happily. It smelt like Stella's shampoo, she was sure of it. Her mind was too slow to question that right now, or the fact that she could feel that she was only wearing a tank top and boxer briefs. Those facts got left somewhere else, somewhere that wasn't filled with a beautifully comfortable bed and a pillow that smelt like her favourite person.

Then she turned over and the nausea hit, which forced her eyes open and let the light rushing in, revealing quite the impressive headache and quite a few memories. It was then that she realised the headache was only going to get much, much worse.. She sighed and looked around the room, gradually working out that the reason the pillow smelt like Stella was because this was Stella's hotel room. She'd obviously called Stella while she was drunk. She couldn't believe she'd done that, and who knew what she could have done that her inebriated brain would have thought was a good idea. She slowly sat up, trying not to jar her head or puke, to see the older woman watching BBC Breakfast, a steaming mug of coffee in hand. The redhead wanted to sigh even just at the back of her; she was in this whole crush thing pretty deep it seemed. It was like her year nine English teacher all over again.

She grimaced; she really needed to brush her teeth and do bathroom things, but the redhead had no idea where her jeans were, and she most definitely did not want to end up scrambling to the bathroom in her underwear. She tried to quietly peer over each side of the bed and generally examine the area, but her scrutiny was interrupted by the older woman.

"Take the painkillers," she advised, nodding to the nightstand on her left that had a bottle of water and some paracetamol on it.

"Ah, thanks," she smiled and quickly took them, drinking rather a lot of the water in an attempt to get rid of the rather awful taste in her mouth. "Erm, do you know where my jeans are?"

"They're on the chair to your right, underneath your coat."

"Thank you," she smiled and clambered slowly out of the bed, trying to ignore her superior's intense gaze and set to the task of balancing and pulling on ridiculously tight jeans at the same time.

"I'm not going to have to help you put them on, too, am I?" she asked, mirth obviously colouring her voice.

"What?" she looked up, alarmed, from where she was struggling her jeans up her thighs.

"You were so drunk you got stuck in your coat, and you weren't quite able to get your jeans off on your own either."

"I got stuck in my coat?"

"I knew you wouldn't remember, although you were adamant that you would, of course," she smirked. "You also offered to show me around Belfast when the case was over, that I should stick around for a while."

"Oh you should, that's a good idea. I will, if you'd like," she smiled a little even as she carried on pulling her trousers up, letting out a sigh of relief as she finally did them up.

"I would like that, once this monster of a case is over. Anyway, I'm curious as to what on earth forced you into going out drinking alone and getting that drunk?"

"Why? Would you have volunteered to be my drinking partner?" she teased with a laugh. "I'm going to go into the bathroom and decide what to tell you, then I'll regale you with stories," she promised and disappeared into the bathroom. Oh shit, what do I tell her? Was her first thought as she entered the bathroom, then I can't say "I went and got drunk because I have a crush on you," can I?

When she re-emerged Stella was back to watching the news, though the coffee cup, now empty, was resting upon the table.

"Come, sit down, regale me with tales," the blonde beckoned and muted the television once again. Dani took another deep, fortifying breath and then took a seat on the sofa, attempting to look as calm and natural as possible.

"It was just nerves, stress. This case is a big media deal, and I've already messed up."

The blonde looked at her for a moment and narrowed her eyes. "No, it's not that. Well, you are stressed about that but not enough."

"I'm upset about the murders?" she tried.

"No, not that either."

"My partner's been giving me grief because I've had a promotion and he hasn't?"

"No, definitely not," she said dismissively.

"I'm really tired and I can't sleep because I keep on having nightmares?"

"You've been tired, and yawning a lot, but I don't think it's because of nightmares. You're made of sterner stuff than I think you realise," she replied easily, still looking at the younger woman intensely. "No, I think it's something of a more personal nature, though it probably does overflow into your work."

"Doesn't everything?" she laughed and then she sighed. Why couldn't she lie to the older woman?! "Fine, I have a crush on someone at work who doesn't like me back," she said quickly and the blonde practically grinned.

"Is that all? I was worried about you! Can I get any more clues as to who they are?"

"Well, they don't actually live in Belfast and they're my superior." The redhead did realise that she had pretty much told the older woman, but she also realised that she almost definitely would have worked it out eventually.

"Hmm, I must not know them," she frowned as she thought of all the officers she had met, though she had not seen Dani interact with many of the female ones in particular, though if she was honest she couldn't think of very many females in high-end roles in the Police station.

Dani almost sighed in relief. "No, I didn't think you would."

"You'll have to introduce us, then," she decided, which made Dani tense up once more.

"I don't think you'll be able to, she's really busy with the case she got pulled in on at the moment and anyway, as soon as she catches the perpetrator she's going back to where she actually lives."

"Surely she has time for me to say hello?" she pulled out the sad eyes trick. "Please?"

"Maybe, I suppose I'll have to ask her at some point?" so far she had managed to not actually lie about anything while discussing her mystery crush because half-truths seemed to be a whole lot harder to pick up on than actual lies.

"What does she look like?" she inquired. She could feel that something was wrong here, and she was determined to find out what with more probing questions.

"Uhm, she's blonde, and has blue eyes, and she's older than me."

Stella frowned. All this conversation was pointing at her very own self, but that didn't make any sense because, well, she just wasn't someone you would crush on, she would have thought. "Do you have a crush on me?" she asked bluntly, after a long pause.

"What? No! I guess it does sound like that but I-" she babbled while the blonde just looked at her.

"You do. I would have thought that I was too old for you."

"You're not old," she scoffed dismissively.

"Do you even know how old I am?"

"Well, yes, I googled you as soon as you asked me to help with the case."

"You can google me? Do I have a Wikipedia page?" she asked with a smirk.

"You do, actually. Although I've always been curious as to how Wikipedia manages to find out people's date of birth."

"In most cases it's not really a secret," she laughed and then lapsed into silence. "I just don't understand why you'd have a crush on me."

"Erm, why?"

"I just," she frowned and shifted uncomfortably. "I don't understand it. I'm not unattractive for someone of my age I suppose, but I wouldn't say I was all that likeable."

"You really have no idea the effect you can have, do you? You sweep every one away in this tornado of cold, mysteriousness. You don't give a shit what anyone thinks, and you're not out to impress anyone, though you're impressing everyone and you don't even know. You're beautiful, and I know that you will always be exactly who you want to be and you will always say exactly what you want to say, and you'll tell the truth even when the truth sucks. You do whatever the fuck you like and you wear those really sexy shirts with dark, lacy bras underneath it's been ruining my concentration. Also, I just really like pencil skirts in general and you seem to have quite a few of those."

She stared at the younger woman in shocked silence for a long moment, before she leant in slowly and experimentally touched her lips to the younger woman's. The redhead moaned and grabbed her neck in response, deepening the kiss and practically pulling her into her lap. When they drew apart both of them were flushed and panting.

"What did that mean?" Dani asked, breathlessly.

"It means I'm sticking around in Belfast to see where this goes, and whenever I next have a free evening I'm taking you to dinner."

She grinned widely. "I'd like that, though work might complain."

"I'll just say I needed you for some urgent Police business," Stella smirked and leaned in for another passionate kiss.


End file.
